Water Exercises - Deep Water Crunches & Rolls

Susan Foster: Hi! I'm Susan Foster, Founder of New Attitude Exercise. Now we're going to work in the deep water with abdominal curls and crunches. Now let's do a powerhouse move for the abdominals. It's called the Guerrilla, and called that for a good reason. Again, take thumb and pinky, thumb to the ribs, pinky to the hips. Think of the curl, shortening the distance between the ribs and hips, the pinky and the thumb.

So take ribs to hips, bring the feet up. You're in the deep end. You can do these with blue bells or you can do it just with your hands. Exhale, curl forward, take about the curl, round the bells onto the calves, breathe out strongly. Click for two clicks, inhale, reach back. Curl the back like the letter C, exhale all under your knees, hold it there and then slowly release. Let me show you for one minute what this move is not. You'll see this down the deep end. This is a hip flexor move.

Those moves run from the thigh to the back, but they're not abdominal muscles. So what needs to happen is a curling, arounding, breathing out, so the front of the body pulls back into the backbone. You can use these, of course, with the water bells or without, concentrate on the back rounding like the letter C, and that's your guerrilla.

This next one gives you abdominal curls, plus the obliques in one multi-tasker move. Legs are up, they stay up at the surface of the water. Good. Now reach this hand across the opposite chin. Keep curling and reaching, taking rib to the opposite hip, take your time, hold this, and then reach other hand to the other chin. Notice how the body is curled and the toes are up at the surface of the water. Take your time so you get the full curl effect.

It's a little bit like a bike, if you're doing it in the gym, bicycle move. Now watch this, you can go ahead and add your water bells, toes up again. Reach way pass the chin. Bring the shoulder forward, and then, other, and repeat. Work slow. You'll be feeling abdominals contracting, breathe out, that's what we call Eggbeater. The next one is a powerhouse for working the abs in an isometric contraction. It's called V seat. Stack one toe on the other heel, your legs and your torso look like the letter V.

Your job, as you breathe out, is to squeeze the V and hold for six counts. As you breathe in, you release the V, breathe out, pull in the belly into the backbone and reach and hold and then release. Now if you'd like to, you can add a set of water bells to this move. Stack the feet again, think about your V squeezing, shoulders reaching forward, toes reaching up to the forehead. Be sure to hold, hold, hold as you breathe out, and release.

It's no sweat to doing the pull, feels lot better than in the gym, that's the V seat. Next, let's move onto doing chest deep water for thigh and rear toning.